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Malin Åkerström

Malin Åkerström

Professor emerita

Malin Åkerström

Doing Ambivalence: Embracing Innovation – at Arm’s Length

Author

  • Malin Åkerström

Summary, in English

This article considers the social organization of responses among human service staff to changes in public policy, using a study of a Swedish treatment center for juveniles as an illustration. The stance towards a new treatment ideology, “family-work,” was not one of either accepting or rejecting the new policy; the staff conveyed both embracing and distancing. Policy innovations, it is argued, create conditions that work as a catalyst for “doing ambivalence,” an accommodative rhetoric that integrates the new and delicately express reservations.

Department/s

  • Sociology

Publishing year

2006

Language

English

Pages

57-74

Publication/Series

Social Problems

Volume

53

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Topic

  • Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

Keywords

  • rhetoric
  • rehabilitation
  • youth center
  • sociologi
  • juvenile delinquents
  • care
  • organizational changes
  • family care
  • sociology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Kriminal- och socialvetenskapligt nätverk

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0037-7791